Google isn’t going to let you in until you set up your first campaign. So, quickly fill in the required information. I put $1 in the daily budget.

Yes, they’ll even make you put in your credit card information. But, you do not have to activate your campaign. You card will not be charged any fees to use the Keyword Planner.

Review, and click finish and create campaign.

Head to your email and verify your account

You now have access to Google Keyword Planner, click Take me to my account.

Okay, now that your account is all set up, you’ll never have to go through those steps again. You’ll be able to log in and only use the Keyword Planner.

How to use the Keyword Planner

Go ahead and ignore Google’s promptings to start your first campaign (unless you want to, then by all means, go ahead!)

In the top navigation bar click tools and drop down to Keyword Planner.

Under What would you like to do? click Search for new keyword and ad group ides

Type a handful of words or phrases related to your post. Use a comma to separate different keywords. For an example, I searched for: Halloween wreath, wreath ideas for Halloween, Halloween wreath tutorial

Click Get ideas

Underneath the graph, click the tab Keyword Ideas

You will be given results for the keywords you searched for + relevant keywords!

Why use Google Keywords

Who doesn’t want more blog traffic from search engines? Using the Keyword Planner tool can help you narrow in on what people are searching for. I have found that I don’t always use the same phrases as most people, so I’ll go through and change those phrases. It can also give you ideas for future posts. I used it to see what type of blogs people search for and what people are searching for this fall.

Kristie’s keyword tips:

Don’t write your posts based on keywords. You want to be original and you. Instead, write your post first and then go the keyword planner and type keywords based on main content of the post. Compare those keywords to the recommended keywords. Then, go back through your post and adjust where necessary

Don’t always pick the keyword with the most searches. It might be better to get all the traffic for a keyword lower on the list than to be far down on the list for the top keyword.

Don’t go overboard with keywords. Google doesn’t like that.

Do use Google Keyword Planner to help you find keywords.

Do have a great day today!

Looking for more posts on SEO?

I’d love to hear your success (or not so successful) stories on using keywords in your blog posts. Did you find it helpful? Have you noticed an increase in search engine traffic?

Kristie Hill

Hi! I'm Kristie, but you probably guessed that. I'm here to help you with the technical, social, and business sides of blogging so that you can focus on the most important part of your blog: your content. You can learn more about me here. Go ahead and stalk me Facebook,Twitter,Pinterest,

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Comments

Thank you so much for letting us know we have to set up our first campaign. I hadn’t read anything that mentioned that and I never got past that point because I didn’t want to be charged for anything unail I was ready. I really appreciate you for sharing one of the most important points in getting to the keyword planner. I think a lot of other bloggers assume everyone knows what to do, and some of us don’t find it insulting if you talk to us like were 5 years old. At least I don’t.

Hi Stacey. Thanks for not being offended. 🙂 I agree that bloggers frequently forget that people aren’t on the same page as they are. Hope you find google keyword planner useful. I actually have video I’m working on about keywords this week. I’ll email you when it goes live.

Great Post! Google’s Keyword Planner is a fabulous tool! I had thought I had included all the essential keywords but now I realize I was getting lost with all the competition. I selected certain keywords based on monthly search amounts and lower competition. Looking forward to seeing that inbound traffic rise 🙂

Hi Kristie, great content. Thank you for you help!!
I hope this can help to boost my blog’s traffic and that our content start to show up on google more times.
I have a question for you. When someone is running a blog that is written in two languages (portuguese and english), do you have any suggestion for the language and location that must be choose when submiting the first 1 dollar campaign??
Thank you!

That’s a tough one, I haven’t experienced that before. Select the one that you hope to be found on more? If you aren’t going to be using adwords, and just plan on using the keyword tool, it probably doesn’t matter very much.

Thank you for your help 🙂 I want to say a big thank you for this article! I’ve searched a lot on this topic but anyone is addressing the 1 dollar thing!!!! And this small thing that apparently noone talks about is really important for anyone who doen’t understand much about it . Again, thank you!

Great post. I love how you kept it pretty simple. There’s just one thing though…the column in the Keyword Planner that says “Competition”…that refers to people bidding on ads (the kind of ads that show up in Google searches and on websites). It does not refer to how many other websites/blogs are using that phrase.
So unless you are bidding on ads to advertise with you can ignore that column. To find out if there is a lot of competition (other websites and blogs using those keywords) for you as a blogger then you would want to use a tool such as Traffic Travis (which has a free version) to find out what the competition is.

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